Background – BIM4Housing is working with BRE/CIH to transform the outputs from the Round Table knowledge sharing workshops into machine-readable data.

Our objective is to provide ways for people to access all the information they might need when making decisions or dealing with challenging issues.

Experts have generously given their time and we have produced a 15-25 page report for each asset type but, for them to be easily used, we now need to create reusable machine-readable data libraries.
This is an informal recording of Julian Buhagiar and George Stevenson spending a few hours walking through the process using the CIH/AP Templater application.

It is important to recognise that, once this has been completed for each Asset Type, it can be reused many, many times. Few of the people who use the BIM objects that will draw in these Templates will need to understand how the Templater works – but those who are interested in the detail can.

Cavity Barrier - explanation of the Round Table Word Document– 5 mins

This is an explanation of the Outputs we have produced from the Round Table workshops and the Process we are following to allow Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to come together, share what they know and learn from other Experts who might have a different perspective/information requirement.

Templater - Data Dictionary – 3 mins

This explains that Templater (the software platform Activeplan developed with the BRE/CIH and made free to the industry to encourage the standardisation of data) is a Data Dictionary that can be used to create data templates about anything – products, systems, buildings, procedures, method statements, surveys etc.

Attributes/properties - Experts can determine an attribute or a measure they want to include and add it to a master library that can be used on other Templates. These properties include the required format and unit of measure and, where appropriate, a reference or Unique Identifier with another data dictionary – possibly including an API connection.

Property Groups - These individual attributes can be added to a collection of the attributes to perform a function – perhaps the basic information that anything that is electrically powered.
Templates – This is a master collection of Property Groups and Attributes, creating an Asset Data Template that includes all of the required information that any of the experts has asked for.

Actors – The Templater allows Roles or Actors to be defined so that an FM, for example, who doesn’t need to see all of the information required of the designer or installer, can be automatically presented with information they need – and nothing more. If they need to see everything, they can.

Interconnected data dictionaries - 3 mins

This explains that the Templater is only one of many Data Dictionaries that will be holding information for different stakeholder groups for different purposes. It has been designed, from the ground up, to connect with other data dictionaries using Web Services, enabling a communities to share interoperable data – and encourage the development of innovative ways to consume and supplement it.

Templater Cavity Barrier workshop - 1 hour